Gravity
by shyjedi
Summary: Kylo Ren senses Rey using the force to escape her restraints, and the trajectory of fate shifts dramatically. In the wake of the destruction of Starkiller base, they escape together, but damage their ship in the process. Stranded together in dead space, they must work together to fight for survival. Reylo AU
1. Prolouge

AN: To set the tone for this story, I decided to start by filling in the gaps between the dialogue during the cannon interrogation scene. There was a lot of room to work with, since anything could have been going on in their heads, so I took some creative license. After this prologue, the story will diverge into an AU, and I already have 8 chapters written, so I have a pretty solid idea of where it's going. Hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: Star Wars does not belong to me, and I make no profit from the publication of this work.

* * *

Her dreams, strangely grey and far away, were lingering far longer than dreams were meant to. She felt a deep sense of unease, and sometimes, felt close to remembering why, before the answer slipped out of her mind again.

Time passed, warping strangely. It felt as if it had been minutes, or months. But she could feel that she had been waiting.

Finally, she awoke with a gasp, and the immediate knowledge that she was in danger. She could sense his presence, and remembered how he had seized every muscle in her body, and bent her form to obey his will.

"Where am I?" she asked, an instinctive, grasping question, one she knew was futile, but could not contain.

"You're my guest," he replied, his voice distorted, inhuman.

"Where are the others?" she said as she blinked rapidly, in an attempt to clear her clouded vision.

"You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends?" he said, "You'll be relieved to hear I have no idea."

She felt a hot wave of anger rise into her throat at his words. She couldn't believe that he could say something so completely false as if it were the truth. As if her friends were somehow less than him, when people like Finn were worth a thousand of his arrogant ass.

She felt the first brush of his mental gaze then, like a ghost passing over the back of her neck. She knew what it was immediately, instinctively, and her rage only increased.

"You still want to kill me," he observed, his voice devoid of tone, stating fact.

"That's what happens when you're being hunted by a creep with a mask," she spat back through clenched teeth, wanting him to react to her anger.

He did react, but not how she had expected. He turned around, and with almost dramatic ceremony, removed his helmet.

As he slammed it down into a hexagonal dish full of grey powder, she felt a strange energy crawl down her spine, as if she had just walked over a grave. He turned around, and she forgot the strange dish.

He looked nothing like she had imagined. She had expected the look of a ruthless soldier, the trained killer that he was.

Instead, he looked like an extension of his traditional black robes, long-faced, awkward, and slightly sad, his large lips making him look almost boyish.

He stepped closer, taking up most of her field of vision. His combined proximity and silence increased her anxiety, which made her hate him all the more. Her heartbeat intensified, filling her ears with rhythmic thrumming.

"Tell me about the droid."

She was relieved. She could do this, she could redirect him. It would be just like redirecting nosy scavengers on Jakku, whenever they grilled her for information.

"He was a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyper scan indicator…"

His face flashed with sudden impatience, and she knew that her evasion had been pointless. He already knew what she was trying to hide.

He interrupted, "Carrying a section of a navigational chart. And we have the rest. Recovered from the archives of the empire. But we needed the last piece, and somehow, you convinced the droid to show it to you." He paused ominously before continuing, spitting the words, "You. A scavenger."

He intoned then, almost carelessly, "You know I can take whatever I want."

She felt him, prowling just outside the edge of her mind. He was radiating calm confidence, the sense of total security that came with the knowledge of practiced superiority.

Meanwhile, she was frantically clamping down, tensing up, encircling her memories of the map with a feverish will, burying them deep within herself. She would not let him have them.

He lifted his hand then and drew himself close to her, entering without further warning. Immediately Rey was smashed by a headache that seemed to cleave into her forehead. He began to search, tearing through masses of her memories, and she was forced to watch them as they flew by, thrown into disorder. In flashes, she felt the emotions of each memory as it fluttered past in the wake of his probing.

Quickly, she realized that she could slow him by forcefully recalling memories in detail. So as he moved deeper, she began to throw out streams of these obfuscating memories, sending him down into her encyclopedic knowledge of engine parts, down into her memories of every good find she'd ever made.

She felt the first hint of his doubt then. It was only a whisper, but she latched onto it, and devoured it like a staving woman. She fed her will with it, and it grew even more frenzied.

But he could adapt as well. He seemed to focus, to gain a degree of seriousness that he had previously lacked. And he began to look for her fear.

He pulled the nearest fearful memory into view, and then reached out for others that shared the same emotion. He began to use the chain of fear memories like a rope in a sandstorm, pulling himself down, deeper into her subconscious. Now when she tried to distract him, he had his chain to cling to, and he was not swept away.

The memories became increasingly upsetting to recall.

 _…_ _Wes, ten years her senior, his comforting smile, that feeling of security she felt when she was with him, when he teased her. Until he had called her a pest and left her alone, in a dark wreckage…_

 _…_ _waking to the noise of ship engines, feeling a deep compulsion to make sure it was not her family, having to go out and check…_

 _…_ _the spacers, they had passed through on the way to the outer rim, and she would watch them. With a secret, aching longing, as mothers kissed the foreheads of sweaty, dirty children, even in their rags they had more than she ever would…_

She was crying. She heard him talking, inside and outside her mind, two voices in unison, "You're so lonely. So afraid to leave." His words twisted with surprise, and a shriveled pity. She hated him for the pity most of all.

"At night, desperate to sleep, you imagine an ocean. I see it. I see an island."

Her island, her ocean, flashed before her. Her secret place, her escape. She could not remember ever having seen an ocean in her waking life. It had been a mystery that she could conceive of such a thing, but it had been her mystery. And now, he knew it too.

She twisted violently against her bonds, her teeth bared in anguished rebellion.

"And Han Solo. You feel like he's the father you never had. He would have disappointed you."

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" she screamed, thrashing.

"I know you've seen the map. It's in there. And now you'll give it to me," he said, as if his words would will his desired reality into existence. Perhaps they could. He closed his eyes, sharpened his concentration, and redoubled his efforts.

His presumption, his invasion, filled her with revulsion. She shook with anger. And finally, in desperation, she reached deeper, past what she had believed to be the limits of her will. Beyond her will, she found something new.

It was a connection to something so vast, so deep, it took her breath away. In the silence she found there, she felt afraid.

Recklessly, she gave herself to it entirely. She let it fill her mind, clear and pure, like the peal of a silver bell. Her eyes remained closed, but she saw him then, standing before her, his silhouette wrapped up in stunning display of living light, his energy intertwining with hers.

She experienced a feeling of leaving her body, as if she had never had a body at all. She could sense the troopers asleep in the quarters above her, the thoughts of the guards on patrol outside her cells, the tortured mind of another prisoner, even the alien mind of a tiny beetle scurrying down a nearby corridor. She was no longer Rey, and furthermore, she realized there had never been a Rey, only an illusion of separateness.

Between herself and Kylo Ren, she saw golden lines of fate, thrumming and shifting, blindingly bright. She reached out to touch them, and an incomprehensible weight of knowledge fell onto her, the weight of years of lived experience yet to come.

She could not understand it. It was too much, and beyond comprehension. She felt herself begin to panic, and then, she heard his voice,

"Don't be afraid. I feel it too."

Her eyes shot open, and she found herself in her body again, staring into his cold eyes, ice blue. He was looking at her expectantly, more softly, as if he believed that she, now enlightened, would give into him, and submit to his will.

Her anger reawakened at his presumption, and began to swirl into the lingering energy, forming something ice cold and ruthless. She let it take over her thinking mind again, knowing somehow that it would help her.

Easily, she slipped into his mind, which was so close to hers, and so unguarded. He was taken completely by surprise, thrown into a panic, and she felt the momentum turn, as fate began to rewrite itself.

By the time he had realized what had happened, she was already ripping through his memories with devastating precision. She caught on to a thread of fear and pulled, dredging up an overwhelming amount of information, flooding her own mind with foreign memories. He frantically tried to collect them again, but the damage was done. She could see his fears, flashing through her mind on waves of emotion.

 _…_ _a fear of himself when we first learned about his grandfather, and he looked into his mother's eyes and saw that she did not trust him…_

 _…_ _when Snoke first asked him to kill, and he could no longer deny what he was, what he wanted him for…_

 _…_ _filling the hole in himself, the loneliness, with imaginings of his grandfather, with how proud he would be, with how terrible it would be, if he did not approve…_

 _…_ _from his earliest memories, the fear of the shadow, of the legacy of their family, of the duty, the burden, the task of making his family proud, and then, the task being worthy of the legacy of the legendary Darth Vader…_

"You. You're afraid." she spoke, her voice floating just above a whisper, echoing with the knowledge of her victory, "That you'll never be as strong as Darth Vader."

She drew back, and the connection severed. He flinched away from her as if he had been slapped.

As she laid back, breathing heavily, she knew she had won. She could see it in his face, in his fear and shame. But the euphoria she had been expecting never came. Instead she felt nothing but exhaustion, pity, and perhaps… disappointment. Because he was no longer the agent of pure evil he had once seemed to be, because everything had just become far more complicated. He was a shade of grey now, and she was no longer entirely sure that she wanted to kill him.

He turned and left the room. There was nothing else to be said.

* * *

AN: If you have a moment, please leave a review and let me know what you thought. Thanks :)


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Hello friends! Thank you for your reviews, favs, and follows. It means a lot to know that you guys enjoyed reading my story, and I am so excited to share the rest of it with you. And just so you guys know, am going to try to update twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, until I catch up to where my writing is right now.

* * *

Kylo Ren sat alone in his chambers, the lights darkened to a dim glow, silently meditating.

It had been hours since his encounter with the girl, and still, his mind was refusing to settle entirely. The incident, and the discussion he had had with Snoke immediately afterwords, had jarred him.

He would bring his mind to a silent place for a short time, but repeatedly, her weeping face, caused by his excavation of her worst memories, would rise up behind his eyelids, unbidden.

And then there had been her awakening. It had been years since he had felt the mind of another force sensitive besides Snoke's, and to feel the awakening of a mind so new had felt religious, gloriously pure.

The memory of his humiliation too, intruded frequently. He still felt the raw shame of his wound, and the fear. He had been foolish, to leave his mind so unguarded, to believe that untrained, she was weak. Under extreme stress, the force often gave its users the guidance they needed to survive.

He silenced his mind again, and returned his thoughts to his breathing, and oblivion.

* * *

Minutes later, he was roused by a stirring in the force. A familiar presence was nearing, one that awakened an old, familiar pain in him. He stood, stretching, and reached for his communicator.

"Hux?" His voice cracked with disuse.

Hux's response was swift, "Yes Sir?"

"Han Solo is here, at Starkiller base. It is likely that he has come with a small band of Resistance fighters in an attempt to sabotage our planned elimination of the Ilenium system."

There was a pause before Hux responded this time. "Forgive me sir, but that's impossible. The Starkiller base is equipped with the most technologically advanced sensor array available, and it has detected nothing."

Kylo Ren scowled. "Yet I've still detected something. Sensors can be fooled, but the force never lies. Do not question me in matters you know nothing of."

He could practically see Hux's mouth twisting downwards into an ugly, disgusted grimace.

"Yes sir," he said curtly, "We'll double patrols."

"Good," he said, "See it done."

Still frowning, he put his communicator down on his bedside table and strode to where he kept his helmet. As he placed it over his head, his eyes strayed to the helmet of his grandfather.

He felt a fiery determination fill his veins.

Today was the day he would purify himself, and eliminate his greatest weakness forever. The opportunity had presented itself, and he would take it. He would use his superior power to gain victory, and the force would set him free.

"I will see this done, grandfather," he whispered, before turning and striding out the door of his quarters.

* * *

In the aftermath of her interrogation, her thoughts circled endlessly around what had happened to her.

At first, she tried to understand what it was that had happened to her mind. It was still buzzing with energy, and sensitive to every minute piece of input from her surroundings. She had awakened something from deep within herself, something she had been waiting her whole life to use. She was fairly certain that this dormant gift was the force, the mysterious power that had been used by members of the Jedi order and the Sith. Despite her circumstances, she felt both excitement and joy at the idea of that particular possibility.

She also spent some time processing her new knowledge of the identity of Kylo Ren. She could not believe that she was being held captive by the grandson of the most powerful sith lord of all time. What had his name been when he was a child?

 _Ben Solo._

From there she put together that he was Han Solo's son. And that the woman she had seen in his memories, his mother, was the legendary General Organa. She was saddened by the knowledge. She had never know that General Organa's son had fallen to the dark side. But then, Jakku had never been a well informed planet, and Niima outpost had been one of the most isolated places on Jakku.

 _Niima outpost._

She could not believe that less than fours days ago, she had been laying out in the hot sand, watching as the dry grains slipped in between her fingers, feeling the sun bake her skin, as she waited for her moisture vaporator to run a cycle. That life seemed like a distant dream. Now she was entangled in a war between gods, meeting figures of legend come to life, with millions of lives depending on the outcome.

So most of all, she wondered, why her? Why would all this happen to someone who was no one? Was it possible that she was someone after all?

However, as the hours passed, she became unable to dwell on anything aside from the pain of having her body restrained for so long. The pain had begun the day before as a mere distraction, and had slowly built into a howling beast that refused to be ignored.

She measured time now in the number of switches that she'd made between resting her weight on her right and left sides. In the moments after she shifted, she was provided with some relief, but if she switched too often, it offered no relief. So life had become a game of waiting, for each shift, and of course, for the times when she was allowed to use the refresher.

Those longer breaks were seeming farther and farther apart now. Her sore muscles would ache as she was finally allowed to walk on them, but it was the best kind of pain. She always drew the process out as long as she possibly could, searching for opportunities to escape and generally dragging her feet, until the troopers had to grab her and strap her back in.

It was in this state of mind that an idea emerged. It was faint at first, and shadowed by self-doubt. But something about it seemed deeply right, as if the heavens were pushing her to give it a try. And eventually, her discomfort overcame the reservations she had at the absurdity of the idea.

Around the same time, she realized that Finn was nearby. She could not determine how she knew, only that she was certain of the fact, certain that he was here to help her escape. This knowledge provided her with the final resolve that she needed to push herself towards action.

She took a deep breath, and raised her chin to a dignified height. In the most demanding voice she could muster, she said in the direction of her guard, "You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open."

For a heart stopping moment, the trooper hung in a confused silence. But all too soon, she heard him respond, "I'll tighten these restraints, scavenger scum!"

Her heart fell, and shame clouded her mind. What had she been thinking? Had she really believed that she was capable of hypnotizing people with the force of her will? Perhaps captivity was beginning to loosen her grasp on reality.

But then, there it was again. Something deep inside her was telling her, no, pushing her to try again. It was stronger this time. It offered her help, as it surrounded her, filling her with new strength, encouraging her with the kind, wise words of a thousand voices.

She opened her eyes again, no longer Rey the Scavenger, but someone else entirely. The will of this new person spoke through her mouth as she felt her mind reach out towards the trooper in the same way she had reached into the mind of the man once called Ben Solo.

"You will remove these restraints, and leave this cell with the door open."

It would work this time. She knew it as surely as she knew the color of Jakku's cloudless sky.

And it did. The trooper repeated her words back to her in a mindless monotone, and carried out the task as she had instructed.

The shock of her success was strangely delayed, but it did come finally. And as it did, she felt the strange force that had enabled her actions slip away from her. Before it faded entirely, she added quickly, "And drop your weapon!" as an afterthought, realizing that arming herself would give her an advantage that she could not afford to lose.

She rubbed her wrists in relief, and ran to grab the dropped blaster before heading down the hall.

* * *

He was stalking through the corridors of the west wing, heading in the direction of the presence of Han Solo, when he felt it. A powerful shift in the force, originating from the second level restraining cells, from her. She was escaping, and had used the force to free herself.

He felt a burning rage course through his body. How was it that she was advancing at such an accelerated rate? It seemed almost as if the force itself was teaching her.

And her escape presented a problem. He could either choose to continue onwards and confront Han Solo as he had planned, or he could stop to restrain her more fully. It irked him that he would have to delay his confrontation to deal with her foolish resistance, but he quickly decided that Snoke would be more displeased by the loss of their new potential apprentice and source of information.

As he changed directions, his com beeped, and Hux's voice cracked through, "We're getting an alert from the restraining cell blocks. An unauthorized release had occurred in the female prisoner's cell."

"I've already sensed it," he replied, "I'm heading there now to take care of the situation myself."

He could sense Hux's skepticism at the mention of his foreknowledge, but the general only responded with another curt, "Yes sir."

Before he closed the line, he added, "And Hux?"

"Yes sir?"

"Concentrate patrols on the west wing. Han Solo is somewhere in that area."


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Here's another chapter for you guys. This one is just moving the plot forward again, but on Friday I'll be uploading the chapter where the action really begins! Also, thanks again for your reviews and follows! It definitely helps me to write faster when I know that other people are reading my work and enjoying it.

* * *

It was a short walk to the holding cells from where he had been. He came across her in a hallway a short distance from them. She was crouched down next to the body of a fallen trooper, attempting to force the limp body into a storage locker that she had managed to pry open. He paused for a few moments, watching her, before he realized that he was delaying his confrontation without reason. He was stronger than her, and of course, he was not afraid of her. There was no reason to delay.

He approached her, not bothering to hide his presence.

Predictably, she dropped the body and went for her blaster. Effortlessly, he deflected the bolts, echoing their first confrontation. He used the force to freeze her movements again, but this time, with his mental shields at full power, and a degree of caution that came with his knowledge of her growing powers.

"Is this how you treat everyone who accepts you into their home as a guest?" He asked sardonically as he moved closer to her silent, straining form.

He felt her anger rise to a fever pitch, and kept her frozen to prevent her from responding. He did not need to hear her voice to know the kind of nonsense she would speak.

"No need to get so upset," he said, "I'm a gracious host, and I'll forgive your… poor manners."

Her fingers, he noticed, were beginning to twitch. And despite the calm front he was putting out, he was beginning to feel a note of panic at how rapidly he was draining his force reserves in an attempt to hold her. He could feel the force energy pouring off of her in powerful, tumultuous waves. They were disorganized, but so bright. Full of the kind of light that he still worked to eliminate from within himself, that he both feared and longed for. And it enraged him that she was advancing with such speed despite the inherent weakness of the light side.

"Your willpower is admirable," he said though clenched teeth, "But it is held back by the weakness of the light."

A choked noise escaped from her throat, and he decided it was time to end their confrontation.

"If you refuse to cooperate," he said, "I suppose you leave me with no choice."

He thrust his hand out, pouring all his concentration and willpower into a powerful force suggestion of sleep. It took him longer to subdue her consciousness this time, but in the end, her mind was no match for his years of training. Her success in the interrogation room had only been caused by his underestimation of her. Expecting a helpless, untrained mind, he had left his own mind completely unshielded, leaving himself open even to her wild, desperate advances. It was a mistake he would not make twice.

She collapsed sideways, and he was forced to reach out and catch her quickly to prevent her injury. He then lifted her sleeping body, and this time, decided to carry her over his left shoulder, leaving him with a free hand to use if needed.

Now that he'd found her, he was anxious to return to his original objective, his confrontation with Han Solo. He headed for the nearest rapid transport rail port, and reached for his communicator, again.

"Hux?" he barked.

The tail end of a long sigh crackled through the com. Or perhaps that was just static?

"Yes, my lord?"

"Have the patrols found him yet?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"No. There's nothing to report on that front. And the superweapon is charging perfectly on schedule in every regard." He sounded perfectly smug.

He scowled. "Keep looking. I'm certain they are here."

"Any luck with the escaped prisoner?" Hux asked, changing the subject.

"Yes." He said, "I have her with me now. I'm going to relocate her to more secure restraints. Have my ship powered up and ready for my arrival at the main hangar bay."

"Anything else?" Hux said, voice thick with sarcasm.

Kylo Ren heard the sarcasm, and chose to ignore it. "Send someone competent to the holding cell where the prisoner escaped from. Have the guards interrogated, or clean up and analyze what's left of them. I want a full report on how she escaped on my personal datapad within the hour."

There was a long pause. "You are aware, my lord, that within the hour we will be firing the superweapon at the Ilenium system, and all captains aside from those on patrol will be required to report to the main hall for the ceremony?"

Kylo Ren exhaled sharply through flaring nostrils. "I didn't ask for problems, I asked for solutions. If all the captains are occupied, as they should be, then reassign one."

"Lord Snoke ordered…"

"Enough! Lord Snoke ordered me to bring this prisoner to him. Surely, a missing captain at some ceremony will not offend him so much as the failure to complete a direct order. See it done!"

He promptly muted his com before he could hear more of Hux's whining.

He despised Hux. The humiliation of having to treat him as an equal grated at his nerves. He was a dark lord of the sith! He should lead by right of power! But he was not yet more powerful than Lord Snoke, and Lord Snoke had dictated that he treat Hux as an equal. As irritating as it was, he currently had no control over the matter.

Turning his mind back to the present, he shifted the girl on his shoulder slightly, and boarded the transport shuttle which had arrived at the station during his conversation with Hux. When he saw the doors open to reveal a shuttle already packed with troopers, he almost commanded them all to get off immediately. The Stormtroopers clearly anticipated this command, or worse ones. But he fought off the urge, and stooped to enter the low entrance of the shuttle that would carry him to the other side of the base.

As the doors of the small chrome pod closed and it began to move forward on its maglev rails, he sensed the troopers' fear, but also their questioning stares. He realized with a start that they were probably wondering why he was carrying an unconscious girl around the base.

But what did he care about the opinions of ignorant ground troopers? They were disposable scum and could think whatever they wanted.

One of the more nervous troopers got up from his seat, and offered it to him. He wanted to ignore the gesture, but he had clearly been staring directly at the man. And turning down the offer would undermine his position of authority. He nearly growled with frustration, but he took the seat.

He was forced to move the girl into his lap, drawing even more stares from the cursed Stormtroopers.

This day was rapidly becoming a nightmare.

* * *

Kylo Ren nearly knocked over the Stormtroopers that surrounded him in an attempt escape the confinement of the maglev shuttle as soon as possible. He was relieved to see the main hangar bay doors directly ahead of him. The girl was beginning to stir, and her warm breath was distracting him. Worse, he had been sensing a building danger in the force. No doubt Han Solo and his Resistance allies were wreaking havoc for every minute he was occupied by this irritating girl. She was ruining everything, even while unconscious. And the worst part was that he knew he was to blame as well, for being foolish enough to believe that Hux's lackeys would be able to halt Han Solo's progress with any degree of competence.

As he passed though the hangar entrance, he was approached cautiously by a Stormtrooper corporal. He did not slow down.

"Sir?" The corporal finally choked out, as he trailed along behind him.

"What is it?" he snapped.

"General Hux sir, he ordered me to give you this communicator upon your arrival, sir."

Kylo Ren whirled around, black robes flying, his face a scowl behind his mask. "Does he think me too stupid to use the same one more than once?"

If possible, the trooper's voice had become even more fearful.

"N-no sir. He told me to inform you that your com has been on mute, sir. And that the shield system has been compromised, with the cause still unknown."

As if on cue, the floor shook slightly beneath them as an explosion rocked the base.

He cursed, and nearly dropped the damned girl. As he felt her hand grasp weakly at his tunic, he briefly reached into her mind and felt her consciousness rising back up through the fog of his force suggestion. She was waking up.

In the world outside her mind, a siren began to blare loudly, and a few pilots began to stream into the hangar, readying themselves to counter the attack.

He snatched the com from the corporal, who scurried away after a groveling salute. As he stalked up the ramp of his gleaming black cruiser, he depressed the button on his new com.

"Hux! What the hell is going on?"

"Ahh, Kylo Ren," Hux drawled, "It's about damn time. I'm not sure I want to answer that question, since I can be almost certain that you'll turn around and tell me that you had sensed the answer all along and were just testing me."

"Answer the damned question Hux!" Another explosion rocked the Starkiller base, this time with more force.

"Our shields disappeared minutes before the Resistance fighters exited hyperspace," Hux said, his voice frighteningly flat, "They're targeting the containment field."

Kylo Ren kicked the black padded wall of his cruiser and let out a scream of frustration. "It was him! I told you he was here!"

The scavenger girl let out a soft groan, and he remembered her advancing rise to consciousness with a wave of urgency. Cursing again, he continued to make his way towards the rear of his ship, where he kept his few personal possessions.

"Calm yourself!" Hux snapped, "We don't have time to spare for you to slice up another one of my officers! How fast can you get yourself back to the west wing?"

He wanted to scream again, but as much as he hated to admit it, Hux was right. If there was any chance left for him to kill Han Solo and halt this Resistance scheme, he needed to act quickly, and channel his rage into productive action.

He took a deep breath and silenced his mind, allowing his hatred and anger to crystallize into detached coldness, into fuel for his concentration.

"It took me fifteen minutes to get here by shuttle," he said, his voice now dead of inflection. As he spoke he entered the cargo bay at the rear of his ship, and dropped the girl onto a bench. Hurriedly, he opened a biometrically locked safe and retrieved an ancient artifact of the sith wars, a durasteel force suppressant collar.

"But I won't be returning by shuttle," he continued, as his fingers rubbed along the familiar runes of the collar. "I'm going to fly my ship straight to them."

"You do realize," Hux said, "That you'll be flying straight through the thick of the battle?"

"I'm counting on it," he said, and snapped the collar around the girl's neck with a metallic click.


	4. Chapter 4

I have an extra long chapter for you guys today! This was going to be two chapters, since there are two POVs, but they both seemed too short, so I combined them. Enjoy!

* * *

Rey awoke feeling dull and drowsy. She felt her wrist and ankle restraints, and knew immediately that she was still his prisoner. But strangely, she could not feel him in the cockpit with her. She turned to her left and saw him, running through pre-flight checks with careless speed.

It looked like him, but he seemed somehow like an empty shell of himself. She could sense no life in him, no presence.

Something was deeply wrong.

She could no longer sense her surroundings. She had never even noticed that she experienced this sense until now, when it had left her. She felt half blind, and vulnerable.

She quickly realized that he had done this to her when she felt the object wrapping itself around her neck. It was the only thing she could sense now, and it felt intensely wrong. Dark and soiled, it inspired a sense of revulsion in her, and if she had been able to, she would have flinched away from it, shot a weapon at it. It was against the will of the universe, an abomination. And it was blocking her, absorbing what should have been hers, becoming ever more a perverse and bloated presence.

"What have you done to me?" she asked, cursing the note of fear that leaked through into her voice.

He was powering up the main engines now, slowly lifting off, and hovering towards the hangar door that stood open to the black void of space. He did not respond for a few moments as he appeared to be focused on the delicate flying that was necessary for a smooth takeoff.

As the ship cut through the energy field and entered space, there was a moment when the edge of the atmospheric containment shield passed over the viewport. It glowed a brilliant blue, and she watched it flash in the reflections on his helmet.

"I've restrained you more fully," he finally replied, pushing the throttle forward, picking up speed, and steering the ship into an arc that sent them parallel along the surface of the base.

As they began to pick up speed, flying low and close the base's surface, Rey was surprised to see a full scale space battle taking shape in the distance, far ahead of them. Hundreds of Tie fighters were swarming around a much smaller group of resistance crafts. But they were holding their own. She watched as a small craft dropped down into an arc over the base before a massive explosion plumed upwards, swallowing several tie fighters in its wake. She grinned, and glanced over to gauge his reaction. With his mask in place, he seemed unaffected. Perhaps his inner emotions would have told a different story, or perhaps this barrage had been ongoing.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, knowing full well that it was probably a pointless question. Instead of answering, he dropped the craft into a steep dive, into one of the maintenance grooves that cut through the surface. Instead of slowing down for the difficult maneuver, he sped up, and the surfaces around them began to blur with nearly incomprehensible speed. Rey swore she felt her stomach drop out from under her, despite the artificial gravity the ship was generating. It was exhilarating, flying so close to the ground. It made her realize just how fast they were truly moving.

It seemed he was planning to avoid combat, to shoot underneath the whole battle without engaging. To what end, she had no idea.  
She watched the tie fighters and rebel pilots as they engaged each other, flying in graceful loops, swarming over the base. Their laser cannons fired silently in the vacuum of space, giving the scene a dramatic weight. As if the universe was holding its breath, waiting for the outcome of the battle.

They were almost on the other side of the battle now, and most of it was out of view. She returned her gaze to him when she noticed he was removing his helmet and gloves.

When he moved his hands back onto the controls, he gripped them more tightly, twisting his hands around them. His face became fixed with an intense expression of concentration, and he seemed to be readying himself for something.

Rey turned her head back to the viewport and felt panic flash up inside her. There was a wall looming ahead of them, the trough in which they had been flying was coming to an abrupt end. They were going too fast.

He pulled up in time, but it was a near thing. At the last second, he had jerked the controls back powerfully, in a way that might have ripped them off in another craft.

Rey was thrown back into her seat, and her vision darkened slightly as they shot straight upwards, against the gravity of the massive base. And still he did not slow down. He executed a spinning roll as he accelerated, pushing the craft to its limits, and blasting  
them into a new direction, slightly to the right of their old path. A snowy forest now flew by below them, and a hexagonal structure towered ahead of them.

A red indicator light flashed then, informing him of a craft moving into attack position behind them. He silenced it with a sudden smash of his fist. Although they had been above the surface of the base for mere seconds, it appeared they already had someone tailing them. Rey realized with a flash of distress that this encounter would end with either herself or the selfless Resistance pilot in a pile of flaming ashes on the planet's snowy surface. And the outcome was out of her hands.

Kylo Ren threw the ship into a series of dive rolls to evade fire while he looped up, attempting to get behind the X-wing. Although he evaded all fire, his efforts were futile. The agile X-wing matched all of his maneuvers, remaining out of the firing range of the sleek black craft.

Rey watched as his expression slowly morphed into one of impatient frustration. Wherever they were going, he wanted to get their badly, and soon.

Unexpectedly, he began to fly in a straight line, making himself an easy target for even the freshest of rookies.

"What are you doing!?" she yelled at his idiocy, "You're going to get us both killed!"

A moment later, a blast rocked the ship violently, and threw her forcefully into her safety restraints.

In a state of shock, she realized that she was still alive. The readouts were flashing, but from what she could see, his top of the line shields had taken most of the hit. Numbly, she watched as he rapidly shut down their engines, repulsors, and even life support. To anyone watching, they were a dead ship now. And just like a dead ship, they began to fall out of the sky, frighteningly fast.

The cockpit was eerily silent now, without the noise of engines. Now there was only the cadence of his rapid breathing, overlapping with hers. She looked out the viewport and saw the ground rising up to meet them, sickeningly fast. She had never before experienced flight sickness, but she felt a new sensation now, as if her stomach was rising into her throat, as if her body had no weight at all.

She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched the chair, and wondered with resentment if his breathing would be the last noise she'd ever hear.

The engines powered back on with a whine of protest, and then a roar of power that slammed her back into her seat. They were going straight up again, climbing, and then going upside down, looping backwards.

She saw the x-wing that had been tailing them for the first time. It had turned away from them, and flown in the other direction. Maybe its sensors were just picking them up now, but it was already too late.

Kylo Ren fired their ship's laser cannons in three short bursts, and the X-wing became a cloud of falling debris.

He turned their ship back towards the hexagonal structure and began to take them down into a landing arc.

* * *

As he gently brought the craft down into the untouched snow, he looked to his right and watched her as her heaving, panicked breathing began to slow. Her face, pale and shell shocked, eased a bit as her jaw unclenched, and her mouth, which had hung open to gasp down air, finally closed.

To his surprise, she had not let out a single scream at any point during their flight, and he caught himself feeling another wave of respect.

Now that the ship had made contact with the surface of the planet, he could feel every shake of the base reverberating through his bones, reminding him of what needed to be done.

He grabbed his helmet and gloves off the grated floor where they had been thrown during his maneuvers, and quickly moved to exit the craft.

He heard the beginning of her shouted question as he stepped outside into the shocking cold. She was likely asking where he was going, but it was a pointless question. Even if she knew, it would do her no good. Either he would return for her within a few minutes, or they would both die in the coming explosion.

The resistance barrage continued, and from this short range, the explosions seemed epic. Waves of heat pulsed across the snowy plains to meet him as he ran towards the looming hexagonal containment field generator. He noticed with satisfaction that the building seemed mostly unaffected despite the intense resistance fire, but he knew that it must be growing weaker with every passing moment.

And Han Solo was inside. A wild card, if there ever was one. No doubt he was planning some scheme to aid the rebels from the inside. He began to run a bit faster.

He finally made it to the side of the building and sprinted up a maintenance stairway two steps at a time. When he came to a locked door, he crumpled the thin metal with the force, and threw it aside.

He stepped inside. The darkness was disorienting at first, and it took him a moment to gain his bearings.

He saw small lights flashing in unison, each one at the base of the towering pillars which supported the structure. Before he had time to consider their meaning, he saw his father.

On a balcony overlooking the massive room, he stood with Chewbacca and a young black man whom he recognized as FN281.

In that moment, it was as if there was no space between him and his father. He felt years younger under the familiar stare. A wave of unexpected, overwhelming emotion ripped down his chest.

For as long as he could remember, father had meant equal parts anguish and affection. Now he could put an end to all of it, to this messy, weak needing that he still felt within himself despite his best efforts, to this miserable and confusing pull between love and hate. From beneath his robes, he drew his saber.

He had chosen hate. It was simpler than living with uncertainty, than loving and getting hurt. It was the stronger road, a road he could walk without doubt. The power and sureness, the unity of thought, would finally bring him peace.

The long walkway seemed to roll forward to meet him as he walked over the fiery center of the containment field generator. His legs moved forward without conscious thought. He violently crushed his emotions deep into a back corner of his mind, which only increased the drowsy, floating feeling.

He noticed the turncoat trooper was desperately tugging on his father's jacket, an expression of fear clearly displayed. He was trying to say something to his father, but his father's eyes remained fixed squarely ahead, at him.

He was beneath their balcony now. Only a short walk and a utility ladder now separated them, and his father was not running.

"BEN!" his father bellowed over the tremendous noise of the explosions, "Get out of here! Do you hear me?"

Kylo Ren removed his mask, dropping it to the ground. He wanted his father to see his anger. "I will not run from you like a coward, father! Come and face me!"

The traitor was attempting to drag him away now. Then Chewbacca began to help, and it was all over.

"God damn it Ben!" he screamed as they carried him away, struggling, "This place is about to blow! Get out now!"

Everything slid into place. The neat little red lights, all in flashing unison, winked at him from their perches. Such tiny things, yet they were now unmistakable.

He looked back up at the balcony. His father was gone.

Time slowed to a crawl. He saw the charges begin to flash at double speed. Before his conscious thought could catch up, he was sprinting faster than he ever had before in his life. Blood thrummed through every inch of his body, pumped by his frantic heartbeat. It felt as if a hot wave of fire was passing through him, purifying him. He saw the white light of the doorway before him, growing, but still not large enough to enter. His mask lay behind him, forgotten.

He flew out the exit, into the blinding light, and jumped off the top of the high stairway. It would be a long fall, but it would be infinitely better than being on the stairway when the charges blew.

In midair, he felt the explosions erupt from behind him, throwing him forward.

He landed in a snowdrift with a roll, partially cushioning himself with the force.

The sounds of explosions did not stop. They continued in a chain, sounding deeper and more ominous as they continued.

He did not turn to see the destruction. He did not allow himself to feel yet. The force was telling him, screaming to him, not to waste a moment. He propelled himself forward with all the strength he could squeeze from his body, and when he felt his legs begin to give out, he reached into the force to help him press on.

The earthquake began when he was halfway to the ship. He kept running.

A massive fissure ripped through the ground beneath him, and with the aid of the force, he jumped across it. He watched mid-jump as it yawned wider with every passing moment. He kept running.

He finally reached the ship, but still did not slow his pace, and sprinted up the ramp.

In the cockpit, he found her managing to look both pleased and terrified.

As he sat down in the pilot's seat, the ground began to drop out from under them with a deafening rumble. In free fall, he slammed the sublight engines into full throttle from a dead stop.

They began to pull away from the crumbling surface of the planet, but slower than they should have at full power. The gravitational force of the coming supernova was pulling them back in, like a stick in the receding tide of a mighty ocean. In desperation, he engaged the hyperdrive, overriding the flight computer by slamming the off switch. It was extremely dangerous to perform a jump without a pre-programmed route free of obstacles, but they did not have time to calculate one. A chance of planetary collision was better than the odds they had of surviving if they were drawn into the supernova.

When the hyperdrive finally engaged, after a delay which felt like sentient, terrified reluctance, they were both thrown back into their seats, arms pinned back, eyes forced open.

But the jump did not happen. The stars stretched out the way the always did before a jump, but they just kept getting longer, stretching to extreme lengths before beginning to turn red.

The pressure intensified. He felt the skin on his face stretching, his lips opened by the force, revealing the teeth behind them in a disturbing grimace. His vision blacked out as the blood rushed into the back of his body, out of his visual cortex. Every inch of him was in pain. He heard her scream, terrible and distorted.

He felt his first real wave of terror as he realized they were going to die, ripped apart by the violence of the gravitational forces.

He blacked out then.

* * *

Unfortunately for Rey, Ben inherited the Skywalker reckless flying gene.

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	5. Chapter 5

Rey awoke in pain, cold and disoriented. She could not tell which way was up. She felt as if she was floating. Perhaps she was, as she could feel nothing but her clothing, and the touch of the cool air on her skin.

She opened her eyes, and saw a vast expanse of stars. They were the only points of light in her vision.

Perhaps this was death? To float, alone and cold, between the stars?

She reached out to see if she could touch them.

Her hand touched transparasteel, and left a faint ghost of moisture behind.

So there was a layer between herself and space. And she still had hands. She watched as her breath left another cloud of condensation on the transparasteel, making the stars blur and twinkle, as if she was peering through a silk scarf.

So she was alive. But where was she alive?

With difficulty, she used delicate pushes on the transparasteel surface to turn her body around. Inky darkness, absent of stars, was before her now.

A red star flashed out from the darkness, before disappearing just as quickly. Confused, she waited, and it flashed again. It was a light, she realized, and she… she was on a ship. The whole thing must be upside down, but it was true all the same.

Her head throbbed painfully. She reached up and felt a sizable lump on the back of her head. She noticed fully for the first time that her wrists and ankles were in cuffs. And stranger still, a collar sat on her neck, a malevolent presence.

It all returned to her then, in lurching, spinning bouts. Her thoughts wove together, chaotically out of order, and she felt momentarily that she would be sick, before taking deep breaths until the feeling passed.

Acting on instinct, she pushed off with her legs from the transparasteel viewport, and floated towards the flashing red indicator light. Softly, she arrived at the other side, bumping into the padded walls of the ship, before gripping an outcropping to avoid bouncing back in the other direction.

She felt her way onto a switch situated beneath the red light, but delayed a moment before flipping it, as she realized with a flash of terror that the light might reveal the gruesome sight of his mangled body, floating in the void.  
Steeling herself, she flipped the switch. The lights turned on. Recessed and dim though they were, they seemed blindingly bright, and made her head throb more intensely. She squinted sharply, and turned herself so she could look at the cockpit.

He was floating unexpectedly close to her. He looked dead, but she could see his warm breath clouding the freezing air in regular intervals. A sickeningly large lump took up most of his forehead, and two deep purple bruises seeped down from his eyes, darkening his sockets. His mouth was slightly open, and his face relaxed.

She was not sure how she felt about him remaining alive. But she was certain that she was glad he was unconscious.

She jettisoned herself towards the pilot's chair, and maneuvered herself into it with a twisting grip of her bound wrists. Up became down as the cockpit reoriented itself into a more familiar perspective.

With a deep breath, she reached forwards and ran the startup sequence, knowing that within the next few minutes, she would learn whether or not there was hope for their survival. The computers whirred to life around her, and began to run their diagnostics. Soon enough, the data on the extent of the damages began to pour in on the view screens.

Engine four was leaking coolant into the cargo hold, but the spill was only toxic if ingested.  
Engine one had seized and overheated.  
The outer hull had cracked in two places, but the thinner inner hull had not been compromised.  
The communications array had been ripped off.  
The artificial gravity generator was dead, but that had been obvious, and was not an issue.

She began to relax. Things could have been so much worse. Life support was fully functional, the heat had only been turned off to conserve power. Two out of the four engines were still functional, and Rey knew she could land, shakily, under those conditions. The navigational computers were working fine too, although they had lost the interstellar positioning system along with the communications array. Manual triangulation was possible.

And the hyperdrive… she felt her stomach jolt, as she hastily tapped the readout, navigating to the page that would answer the last unknown.

She read the report twice before cursing, and slamming her palm onto the dashboard.

The top of the line hyperdrive had managed to drag them out of the range of the catastrophic supernova, but it had given its life in the process. It was absolutely beyond repair. And at sublight speeds, they might be months away from the nearest planet with advanced life. It was possible they would die of starvation before ever arriving. She cursed again, and began to scan furiously through the navigational maps.

The maps were opened to the sector where the ship's computer had lost its bearings, but even still, she could not pinpoint their exact location. She tried to look for familiar constellations, but with three dimensions to consider, her visual memories from Jakku's fixed perspective were as good as useless.

After a long period of effortful silence, she leaned back into the pilot's chair with a frustrated huff.

She just didn't have the skills to figure out which direction they should start moving towards with the sublight engines. She knew it was possible to calculate position and navigate manually. She'd overheard spacers and freighters without the money for interstellar positioning systems sharing calculations at the spaceport more times than she could count. But she'd never learned the skill herself. She'd never gotten the chance. But she wasn't the only person on this ship.

She turned to study him.

He still hung in the air, hauntingly still, aside from the shallow movement of his chest. She wondered for the first time when he would wake up, if ever. Rey had known of a boy who had fallen from a high ledge while scavenging, and the head injury alone had killed him.

She did not have any idea how she would go about caring for him if he did fail to wake soon. The thought of having to force feed him, and clean up after him, disgusted her.

Lost in her disgust, a dark thought rose up and slipped in from somewhere deep in the back of her mind. She could open the airlock and push him in. Then, with another push of a button, her problem would be solved. It would be a painless death, and he was her enemy, he had held her against her will. There was no reason to think that things would be any different if he awoke again.

And then, unbidden, a memory rose to her mind, a memory that was not her own.

Ben Solo, his face wide and innocent, clutching at his mother's jacket, following her around a glowing war room, craving her attention, and possessed by an overwhelming desire to please her.

She noticed with a start that her fingers had been absently tracing the runes of the collar that was curving around her neck. She withdrew her fingers.

No, she could not kill him. Something in the content of that memory had made her realize the wrongness of that action. Perhaps it had reminded her that this man was the son of the General of the republic, and she would have to deliver the news of his death to her. Or perhaps, the memory had showed her another facet of his humanity, another sign that he could return again to the light.

More importantly, she needed him. She needed this collar removed, and needed someone who knew the specifics of manual interstellar navigation. So unless he directly endangered her survival, she would have to let him live.

Using her legs, she turned and launched herself into the space directly in front of him.

She stopped herself with a sharp push against the padded wall.

"Hello?" she said, unsure of what she was really expecting.

His silent breathing continued in its steady rhythm, undisturbed.

Pursing her lips, she reached out and shoved his shoulder.

She had forgotten that in a zero-gravity environment, this would push them away from each other. She tumbled backwards, and tried to grab his leg at the last second, but found that it had already passed out of reach.

A second later, she heard a muffled thump as his body collided with the padded ship's wall. She braced herself against the transparasteel viewport, now at her back again. Suddenly, he inhaled deeply, the way one does when they are surfacing from the depths of sleep. Surprisingly, he was waking up.

Rey watched him, hovering from above as he writhed against the wall and groaned, grasping at the panels behind him, trying to make sense of his surroundings. She wondered if he even remembered where he was. His eyes, squinted shut from the pain, would not be giving him any clues.

Soon enough, she took pity on him.

"Do you remember where you are?" she asked.

He startled, and then his body froze. He had not sensed her presence.

"Yes. I..." he said, wincing and grabbing his forehead, "Where is our ship?"

"I don't know," Rey replied, "We took a lot of damage when… when Starkiller base blew. The positioning system is knocked. I need you to triangulate us manually..."

He groaned loudly. Eyes wide, Rey blurted, "You can't do it?"

"No, not that," he growled, "I'm going to be sick. Get me a bag."

Rey glided out of the cockpit and into the kitchen area, and began to rummage through the cabinets. Seconds later, she heard him retching and knew that she would be too late.

* * *

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